The importance of weather reporting and forecasting in our daily lives cannot be contested. A large percentage of the people in the United States watch their local evening news on a nightly basis to see the local weather report and forecast. This information may then used to make decisions for the next day, or for the upcoming weekend, such as what to wear, what activity to participate in, what activity not to participate in, what to bring on an outing, etc. Under certain circumstances, such as in the case of severe weather, some people may find themselves in situations where they are making life and death decisions based upon the weather information they have available to them.
To assist local television stations, as well as the national networks, in providing accurate and timely weather reporting and forecasting, the National Weather Service (NWS) maintains a network of radar installations located at approximately one hundred thirty-eight sites throughout the United States. Observers at each of these installations monitor the weather conditions within their area and provide hourly teletyped messages to subscribers, typically through a third party weather service provider such as GTE Contel, a subsidiary of GTE Governnent Systems. In addition, other services provide lightning strike information on a subscription basis, such as through Global Atmospherics, Arizona, U.S.A.
The weather information provided by any one or a combination of the above services may be synthesized at a local television station into a understandable format for presentation to the public. In general, the meteorological data is gathered at the local television station and combined with image maps of a geographical region to generate a weather image i.e., a graphical illustration of the weather. In addition, the local temperatures for various communities or cities within the viewing area of the station may also be generated on the weather image. A sequence of these composite weather images can be looped to create weather animation. The local television station may then broadcast the weather images to viewers.
Although the current weather reporting and forecasting systems used by television stations and networks have much benefit, they may not provide relevant weather information during severe weather. This is particularly true when it comes to the existence of severe weather which arises quickly without much warning, as is often the case with tornados. It is well known that tornados and other types of severe weather can strike quickly without much prior notice. The information provided by the television stations and networks regarding these types of severe weather are seldom provided in a real-time fashion and are generally not detailed as to the specific location or direction of the weather front. Therefore, the public is often not given sufficient warning to adequately prepare for the weather in order to protect their property or find a safe refuge for themselves. Moreover, the weather information that is provided is often provided on a county wide basis which, depending on the size of the county, the actual path of the severe weather through a county, and the position of the listeners within the county, may be irrelevant. The listener may consequently become impatient or inattentive, and stop viewing the weather report.
An alternative source of weather information is through weather radios such as the Realistic Weather Radio Alert III, Model No. 12-140, distributed through Radio Shack.RTM., a division of the Tandy Corporation. In general, weather radios may provide listeners with prerecorded or live weather updates on an essentially continuous basis. The weather radios receive the weather information updates which are broadcasts by the national Weather Service (NWS) from local transmitters using specific frequencies designated by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The weather updates usually comprise regular weather information which is prerecorded and then broadcast, except for the issuance of severe weather watches or warnings. In those cases, a prerecorded (or sometimes live) watch or warning message is preceded by a tone (e.g., a 1,000 cycle tone) that is manually activated at the broadcast station. The tone weather radios that are turned on and within the range of the broadcasted signal may receive the tone which activates an audible alarm on the radio. The audible alarm is typically not distinctive as to the whether it is for a watch and warning, nor does the audible alarm indicate the type or severity of the severe weather. The alarm will usually continue until the user pushes an alert key or button on the weather radio. It is noted that NWS personnel are responsible for both manually recording of the audio messages for broadcast and the manually activating of the tone.
Therefore, a need exists in the industry for an improvement in the delivery of real-time weather information for a localized area to people in that area during times of severe weather.